The role of the event planner is going through a major transformation.
While the event planner role still encompasses overall event management (vendors, venue details, production, and more), it's evolving into something more performance-based. Now, event planners are expected to actually prove the value of their event, and how it affects the bottom line of their entire business.
In this Run of Show Weekly video, we reveal the four main skillsets — in real job descriptions we've found — that future VPs of Event Planning need in order to evolve with the rest of the industry.
Watch below, and take yourself from EP (Event Planner) to VP (Vice President):
Love the animation in this video? Check out Ink Factory.
Want to see more Run of Show Weekly videos? See our archives page here and subscribe to stay in the loop.
Hey there, event geeks. Welcome to this week's Run of Show.
I'm Ben Hindman, CEO of Splash. And this week we're gonna dive into a topic that I am super-duper excited about.
We're watching a shift in our industry. I first learned about it about a year ago when I got a call from a customer and she told me that she'd just got a job promotion. I asked, "What's your new title?" She said, "VP of Event Operations." And, I was really excited to hear that because, to me, that indicated a shift — an evolution in our entire industry.
I Googled it immediately and lo and behold — there were all sorts of job descriptions online for Head of Event Ops, Head of Event Technology and Operations and Event Technology Manager. Really cool job descriptions.
And, so, I've started to call this shift, the shift from EP (event planner) to VP (vice-president) mentality.
When we're talking about EPs, we're talking about people who are responsible for the project management, right? They're focused on the event: hiring vendors, finding linens, getting the DJ. That was the old school.
But, nowadays, they're still responsible for that stuff, but they're also responsible for the performance of the event. And, so, I talk about that, going from project manager to marketer. It also means that we're going from buying stuff or procuring stuff, to actually proving the value of that stuff. So, from procurement to proving.
Now, an event planner (EP) is highly focused on the attendees in the room, right? Who's gonna be in the room? Is that gonna make a great event? That's still something that we need to focus on.
But now, we also need to focus on, not just the attendee value, but the entire lifetime value of our customers and actually focus on the full sequence of what that person does and how it relates to actual money. And last but not least, even the way that our bosses are speaking to us has changed.
We're actually seeing the old school of "high-five, great event, well done, I had a blast" change to "show me the data. Show me the numbers. What are the outcomes? How did this whole thing work?"
So, as we started to study this shift from EP to VP, we started looking around for job descriptions, starting to see who was hiring for this role, and what types of skills they were focused on.
And, so, we found three really great job descriptions, and we're gonna throw them up on the screen here, and dissect them a little bit. So, up on the screen, you're gonna see three roles for Event Marketing Manager, Event Operations Manager, and Event Technology and Operations Manager. And they're being hired by Invisionapp, MetLife, and Box. So check those out.
1. Event Marketing Manager (Box)
2. Event Technology & Operations Manager (Metlife)
3. Event Operations Manager (Invisionapp)
Okay. And, so, what we're gonna do, is we're gonna leave all of the different skill sets and responsibilities that are traditionally owned by someone with an EP, event planner mentality, in black. You still need to be able to produce an event, open the doors, and make it happen.
But, the next stuff we're gonna layer in are the four different skillsets that we've seen that a VP needs in order to be successful in this role. And, we've bucketed them, and we're gonna highlight them, so you can really see how they're evolving in these job descriptions.
1) Digital promotion
2) The ability to lead a team
3) The ability to prove business value
4) Technology literacy
So let's dive through each of these, and we're gonna highlight them so you can see them on the screen here.
So, digital promotion we're gonna highlight in red, and as you can see here, this is an important skillset for any event marketer. You don't just plan the event anymore, you actually have to fill the event with the right people.
The second one is the ability to lead a team. No longer is it important to just get your vendors in the room and make sure the DJ is on point, and that the caterer understands what they need to do, now you need to transfer those skills internally and make sure that your CEO, your executive team, your marketing team, all understand what's happening, what you're trying to pull off.
The next one is the ability to prove business value. This is a huge evolution in what we've seen in this role. This often has to do with the ability to track attendees throughout the entire lifecycle of the event and beyond, and eventually tie that to actual ROI, often integrations with a CRM.
And in blue, what we're gonna do is we're gonna highlight all of the skillsets that have to do with technology literacy. And, so, this is one of the most important shifts that we've seen in this evolution towards a VP mentality.
And what I mean by technology literacy, as you can see here, the ability to understand not just your registration systems, or email marketing, but now to truly understand integrations into CRM, into marketing automation, into data dashboards, and tying those back into your event technologies, and things like your event app, or your on-site registration badge printing tech.
All of this is a symphony of technology that is now under the purview of an event marketer with a VP mentality. So, as you just kinda take a quick look at these job descriptions, you can see here that the majority of the skills are no longer around production, but instead, around things that were traditionally owned by the head of marketing, or the head of marketing automation.
And I want to make a quick prediction here. As we see this shift from EP to VP, we're gonna start to see marketers from other disciplines of traditional marketing, like demand generation, content marketing, and analytics. They're gonna start to understand the impact of these events, and start to transfer their skills, and migrate over to the event side of the room.
And we're actually gonna see this shift from event marketing to marketing through events. It's a really exciting shift, certainly, for me, someone who's been building tech in this space for long enough to have a couple of gray hairs.
1. Event Marketing Manager (Box)
2. Event Technology & Operations Manager (Metlife)
3. Event Operations Manager (Invisionapp)
Ready to take yourself from the EP to the VP? Get started with our Get Method, proven to help you drive ROI from your events.
Ben Hindman is co-founder and CEO of Splash, the country's fastest-growing event marketing platform that helps businesses and brands more effectively market through their events. An event planner turned tech entrepreneur, events are in Ben’s DNA. Prior to starting Splash, Ben was the Director of Events at Thrillist, where he produced large-scale events from concerts to mystery fly-aways.